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Afterlife Forums is an online, interactive community designed to give seekers direct access to prominent researchers, to afterlife literature, and to one another in order to foster both spiritual growth and public interest in life after death.

How did I get here?

Hi, everyone! My name is Susan and I live in Gettysburg, Pa. I am a young 67 and we have two grown sons - no grandchildren as yet.
I had a psychologically and emotionally challenging upbringing with lots of panic attacks and anxiety. I grew up feeling unaccepted, unloved and supported, and a stranger to myself and others.
My interest in "something else" began when I was in my early twenties. After watching a television show that debunked the existence of God, I went to bed and let my imagination run wild on that prospect. I had myself so worked up, that I felt I was being sucked into a black hole of an eternity without love. I screamed within myself "What if that's true? There is no love here, what if there is no love anywhere? We just are always alone, in a great darkness that goes on and on!!" The state of my panic can not be overstated. I thought I was about to die right there, next to my sleeping husband. Finally, I internally screamed, "God, if you are real, I have to know it right now, or I am going to die right here and now!"
Instantly, a being appeared at the foot of my bed. I could not "see" nor "hear" him, but I "knew" it was Jesus. I just knew it with an awareness that I didn't know I had. Peace filled the room. Every trace of fear and doubt disappeared. There were no words shared, nothing more than an infilling of peace, love and certainty.
At one point, the side of the bed was depressed, as if someone had sat on it and it stayed there for a few moments. I was overjoyed! God is real and more than that, He is total love and peace and joy and comfort!!
Oh, could anything be better than this?
I became interested in afterlife issues when my mother-in-law passed. She was a woman of refinement and enjoyed the beautiful aspects of life.
After the burial, her three children were beside her gravesite, tending to minor details. I left them alone and was standing higher up on the hill, looking down towards the grave. At one point, I felt someone come up behind me. I turned, but there was no one there. Then, I heard, in my mind, "Please tell them I am fine".
So, that it how I became interested and curious about such matters.
However, one thing I do know. Everything we think we know is sheer conjecture. Only the part of the mind that "knows" knows!

Thanks, Mac - so far, looks very interesting.
Another incident in our family leads me to accept that our loved ones may be privy to our activity/thoughts after their passing. My uncle was killed in the Korean War. He was killed in July, but his remains didn't arrive home until the fall.
My grandfather was getting ready to go to the train station to receive his remains, but the funeral director advised that he should go instead. My grandfather said, "No, I said good-bye to him there, I'm going bring him home there."
In his eighties, suffering from advanced Parkinson's disease, my very quiet, staunch Presbyterian grandfather, stated without fanfare, "Euty (nickname for my uncle) came to me and said he will be bringing me home very soon". Almost the exact words.
He passed a few days later.